It is a moral system that is people friendly. For example in the management of hospitals, where fixed budgets must be best used to alleviate the suffering of many.
There are many weaknesses regarding utilitarianism. Firstly Utilitarianism relies on accurate predictions of the future and this is impossible. Consequences of actions may not become clear until years in the future. For example if a person were to have an affair, get pregnant and keep it secret for years until one day 20 years later that child needs an organ donated and finds out that his ‘dad’ really isn’t his dad. This would cause a breakdown of the family. Something like this may seem innocent at the time but may greatly affect the future.
Another problem with relying on consequences in order to judge what is morally acceptable is that consequences never seem to end. For example a child could be fiddling with a bracelet and it could break, those beads would roll all around the floor and someone would come fall over and break their leg. And due to them breaking their leg they cannot go to work which would leave them short of money which would lead to them becoming homeless ECT. This illustrates a point of how consequences can never end.
Another problem with utilitarianism is that it is difficult to accurately measure pleasure as some peoples pleasure is another’s pain. There are some pleasures that are bad for example drugs and this cannot compare to the pleasure of children and family. Utilitarianism does not consider that some pleasures are bad and that some are more important than others.
Alasdair McIntyre notes that utilitarianism could be used to justify heinous acts as being for the pleasure of the majority. For example the Nazi ‘Final solution’ could be regarded as good if it meant that the majority thought it was good. McIntyre says “The question can always be raised of how great the price is that is being paid for the happiness”.
Finally Utilitarianism is dependent on people’s ability to know what gives the greatest happiness to the greatest number or what will be good. However what makes a person happy today may not make them happy in 10 year’s time. How can a person know what will give the greatest happiness to the greatest number without asking everyone what they think? This is impossible to do for every situation.
To conclude I believe that utilitarianism can work in some situations but there are many flaws that can prevent it from being an efficient way to decide what to do in many situations. I believe that if a person were to follow utilitarianism then they would have to use some sort of common sense in some situations rather than following the rules of it all the time.
by
nikkiebabbe (student)
